Sub­texts

A read­ing at Gar­cia Street Books to cel­e­brate the 25th-an­niver­sary edi­tion of Mary Donoho: New First Lady of the Santa Fe Trail by Mar­ian Meyer

On Sun­day, May 22, at 2 p.m., the great­great-grand­son of the first An­gloAmer­i­can woman to travel the Santa Fe Trail, along with the daugh­ter of the his­to­rian who wrote her story, read from the 25th-an­niver­sary edi­tion of Mary Donoho: New First Lady of the Santa Fe Trail ,by Mar­ian Meyer (Río Grande Books) at Gar­cia Street Books (376 Gar­cia St., 505-986-0151). Though Su­san Magof­fin, a trader’s wife, was long thought to be the first white woman to make the jour­ney, Meyer’s re­search in the 1980s re­vealed that Mary Donoho, also a trader’s wife from Mis­souri, came with her hus­band 13 years ear­lier, in 1833. The cou­ple lived in Santa Fe un­til the 1837 Perez Re­bel­lion, when they moved to Clarksville, Texas. Donoho raised six chil­dren and, af­ter the death of her hus­band, ran the Donoho Ho­tel, which served as a stop on the stage­coach line dur­ing the Civil War. The ho­tel was also known for dis­play­ing da­guerreo­types in the lobby — early pho­tog­ra­phy that so of­ten cap­tured the brav­ery and can-do spirit of peo­ple hearty enough to trek across the coun­try by horse­back and cov­ered wagon, and who then thrived as self-made men and women. — Jen­nifer Levin